My Failed Shares In A Power Company

 My story begins in the burning heat of summer when Q, my sister-in-law quickly pulled her car up in my driveway.
“It’s so hot. Why are you hiding away from the heat at home? Come on get changed and come with me” Q said.
 
I anticipated the destination we would arrive at. I foresaw an uncomfortable ride sitting in her car as she was a reckless and hot tempered driver. However, on the upside my air conditioner here at home could not generate half as much cold air as Q’s car could,
even on the maximum power setting! I decided to get changed and entered my bedroom. It was as stuffy as the kitchen of a Chinese restaurant.
 
I kept in mind that by leaving the house and seeking refuge from the heat elsewhere I would be saving electrical energy.
 
In effect this would reduce harm to the environment.
I had not yet fastened my seatbelt when Q pressed the acceleration.  She managed to string some words together to make a song.
 
“Where we’re going is so comfortable and cool. You can stay as long as you please. We can go out to eat later on…Bun Bo Hue, Pho, Bun Rieu…you name it!”
 
Her reasons were so enticing that I could not resist going with her. Q teased me about remaining at home to sew clothing to earn a living. She invited me to join her at the more appealing Crown.
 
Q had arrived in Australia after me and had quickly adapted to the lifestyle here. In the past, sewing clothing was a typical source of income for large Vietnamese families who would work collaboratively.
However, when I entered the field of work it seemed like a dying industry.
 
 Upon our arrival I soon identified Crown as a place for great and regular recreation during the summertime. My husband was easygoing in nature and condoned my new heaven of fun.
 
“It’s all right with me as long as you have a place where you can get away from the stresses of working. It’s a good idea for you to get out and about. If you hurt your back while working at the sewing machines all the time it would cost more money than we could
afford. Just remember to not become addicted. After all, it’s just for fun dear!”
 
In return, I promised my husband that I would not get addicted but in my mind I secretly believed that I would win money to bring home.
 
I was so eager to join the group of people who had discovered the wonders of the Casino before me. I soon learnt that frequenters of the casino who won “big” were bestowed names according to what their winnings could purchase such as, “the man who has
enough money to buy lots of estates” and “the woman who travels interstates all the time.”
 
Everyone referred to the successful gamblers
as celebrities in the vicinity of the Casino and it seemed like they were recognised everywhere they went in the place. I wondered if I was lucky and Q brought me back to reality by assuring me that it would be very hard to win enough to pay for a double-story house.
 
She shed some light on my ambitions by saying that one day’s winnings here could amount up to a day’s worth of wages by sewing. Q had been coming to Crown for years and occasionally joked that she was in fact hired by the casino to play for fun.
 
The reality was different from what I had gathered. I conducted my own research and consulted others for advice about winning and conversely how to prepare for losses. Those I sought for assistance advised me that I needed to keep a tally of my winnings and losses, keep an eye on “winning machines” and not try to chase losses if I wasn’t feeling extremely lucky.
 
I never fully understood how to apply these pieces of advice but I simply followed my instinct to gamble continuously until I won. I was soon to discover that most gamblers who felt this “luckiness” in chasing their losses often gambled awayuntil they had nothing left.
 
In my first few days at Crown I felt so lucky because
I had won, although a short while later I lost. Evidently I had not practiced the strategies that I had been taught. I channeled all of my time and money into fuelling my dream of becoming a successful professional gambler. I didn’t care about the losses and now I had started coming to the casino all by myself. It seemed that the extravagant and flashy
lights at crown were too hard to ignore.
 
My husband never had an inkling that his good and caring wife had gambled away all the savings she had personally accumulated for more than a decade. I used to routinely put aside a set amount of money to send to my poor mother in Vietnam.
 
I could no longer afford to do this and my brother covered the amounts sent to my mother instead. I began to get a feel for the consequences of my actions when I woke up early in the morning to hurriedly prepare food for the family then rush to the Casino.
 
I had developed a timeframe that I could spend at Crown without being found out.  I always returned home earlier than my husband would arrive,
regardless of my winnings and losses. I had assumed the role of a fulltime worker for Crown. After all, I was making money for them.
 
Unfortunately it was a one-sided relationship as I seldom received any income in return. I continued to neglect the strategies offered to me.
 
The balance in my account dwindled to nothing and I felt confused. The weak voice of my conscience warned me to stop gambling but my calling to reclaim all I had lost overpowered this.
 
I decided to call Q as I hadn’t heard from her in a while. To my astonishment she too had lost a lot. Q was forced to return to Vietnam to sell her assets and gather enough money to settle her debts. I thought of my own situation and wondered where my husband and I could stay if we lost the house. I had gambled us into the ground.
 
I mustered the courage to tell my husband what had really been going on and he forgave me    wholeheartedly. I felt so fortunate to have someone to support me during my crisis. My beloved husband
always exercised trust with me. Not once did he suppose that his wife had failed him by lying and gambling excessively in that short amount of time. My husband partially accepted the blame for my poor behavior as he failed to stop me in the beginning.
 
It was a tradition for my family and my brother’s family to come to the city and enjoy the fireworks during New Year’s Eve. My brother had separated from Q as she had failed to stop her gambling addiction.
 
Standing on the pier at Docklands I watched the flaring fireworks right next to the twinkling of the lights at Crown. I reflected on my experiences of the past years and asked my husband,
“Dear, I thought I invested shares in an electrical company but to this day I have not received any dividends from the profits.”
 
Diem Xua